Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

I had a topic already in my mind but forgot it. Um. Oh well. Yesterday I was parked permanently on the recliner sleeping, shivering or aching.  The dreaded Flu found me.  Today I am much better, but taking it easy just to be sure. Random Monday instead: Hmmm interesting choice.  This is a picture of the display down at the library about a year ago.  Made by one talented knitter, it was great to see.  I remember now that she was standing beside me as I took the photo and invited me to Monday morning Knitting Group.  Unfortunately, I don't have a car to drive into town for that. 

Well, the furnace is replaced.  The old one is gone and we're basking in 68 degree warmth.  The fuel oil tank will be replaced tomorrow.  That one will be a challenge, but I am sure that the fuel oil dude will get it done. I was taking pictures outside this morning when the fire truck went by.  The town nearby is 2 miles to the left of this picture, and highway 81 is about 2 miles to the right of this picture.  So my road is a shortcut.  Oh and this road takes a 90 degree turn about 1/4 miles down the road. Many people don't negotiate it very well.

If I try to snuggle up close to you in the next few days, it's because the furnace is broken and they're going to have to replace it. Apparently furnaces just don't last 70 years.  This is another time when I am very grateful that I rent this farmhouse and don't own it. Also a good thing I knit a lot of warm things, right? 

Let's just make this a weekly thing; random picture from my 'family' picture folder.  Don't worry, nothing in there is inappropriate for children/adults/goats. So I closed my eyes and selected this one.  It's a nice picture from my front porch taken in late spring.  There's the marigold bed in front, and the wagon wheel with the bird feeder attached to the fence in back.  The County Road going through the picture is nicknamed "Roller Coaster road" for the large hills that make it a lot of fun to drive down. The field across the road was a hay field, turned to soy this year. Somewhere in my picture files I have a photo of a fox jumping in that hay field. It was just fascinating to watch the fox hunting whatever rodent was in the field.

Ok, so we are back from the In-Laws'.  It was 2 1/2 days of relaxing and celebrating.  My husband's uncle Chuck and Aunt Carrie celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.  It was great to see them and their family; a more easy-going portion of the Brauners. Back at home there is the same 'ol same 'ol.  Sewing to do, food to cook, knitting to get finished.  Preparations are underway for winter, and I fear it will be a downright cold one.  More knitted socks will be in order, I guess. And, I'm guessing that my next real design will be for me: It's a Red Angry Bird Earflap hat.  I saw one at Kwick Trip for sale.  I just could not justify the $17 for it.  That's when Dave said, "I know someone who could probably knit that."  Yeah............... .

River Tam is finished.  There is a test-knitter copy of the pattern for those who want to test-knit the pattern. If you wish to test knit, please let me know of any errors.  And, PLEASE let me know of any issues with the directions BEFORE you attempt to knit further.  It just causes less grief that way. CLICK on this link to go to Google Docs  for the pattern. Enjoy!

"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another. Ain't about you, Jayne. It's about what they need." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds 'Firefly'  Episode: Jaynestown.

I closed my eyes and randomly selected a photo from my "Family" photo file.  This one is of my Husband, Dave and my Sister, Tami watching a bonfire at our house.  Taken about a year ago, since it was one with a bunch of other pictures that had Alex and his Girlfriend (now EX-GF) in them. How time has flown since then.  Oh my Sister is fine. So is Dave.  There's another big pile of branches and leaves to burn soon as the wind dies down. 

Well, actually I've been on the project diet now for about a week.  What's a project diet? No new knitting projects will be started until the 10 or so are done. So two are finished, but they were pretty close to being done.  The next ones to be done are going to be more of slog. That stupid Featherweight in Hunter's Orange needs a collar and arms The Gloucester Coat is miles of endless stockinette to finish off the back, THEN onto sleeves and collar The Dockside sweater: 7" of k1p1 ribbing....endless ribbing.  I've got like an 1" done. Bee Fields Shawl: 2nd motif 3/4 done.  Need to count repeats then start the last one. Aoelian: Like on the 2nd part, need to finish + get more beads.  NEVER try to bead this whole flipping. You'll regret it. Silk Shawl: frog or finish? If I try to finish I will need to spin more silk. Well that's about it for knitting.  The family went to the apple orchard last week so I've been baking pies and apple c...

So for most people, taking a shower is a quick and easy thing to do.  Here in the country, it's a bit more of a chore: 1. Sweep floor clean of bugs, leaves and litter (the litter box is in the bathroom) 2. Divest yourself of clothing and head on over to the shower. 3. Open shower curtain, fluff it a bit. 4. Walk over to toilet, grab a few squares of tp and head on back to shower. 5. Use tp to grab whatever creepy-crawly thing is in the shower stall. Today it was a worm-like creature but could have been in the centipede family as it had many legs. 6. Flush creepy crawly down toilet. 7. Take shower. Which creepily reminds me of the time I inadvertently took a shower with one of those icky long legged centipedes. Good thing I am legally blind without my glasses on, or I would have seen the 3" thing crawling up my thigh.  That would have led to screaming, hysterics and probably a destroyed shower curtain. Out in the country, humans are the minority.  You learn not...

kitty pile Originally uploaded by ruddawg Ah the good old days when all 3 cats would stick together. Now they are grumpy, old and Tigger looks like he has mange. I'll be glad when the fleas are all dead. Every. last. one.

 When I was in High School, many years ago, MTV WAS music videos.  And one of them was Bruce Springsteen's War. Before the music starts, Bruce says, " In 1985, blind faith in your leaders or in anything, will get you killed."   Let me repeat that quote:  " In 1985, blind faith in your leaders or in anything, will get you killed ." Here it is, 2011 and it is still true. Still there are those who will just do whatever someone on TV, Newspaper or Radio tells them to. Those media people do not know anyone whom they are attacking personally, and they've got their own agenda. Their agenda is to divide this country into ' us ' and ' them '. Why? Well, it's easier to kill the 'them ' when you can convince a group of people they are less-than-human. I miss my friends . I miss those friends that I found funny, intelligent, and great to hang around with.  I can't hang around them anymore because they chose to believe some nameless...

Packers, Undefeated! 

This is Tyler 'Spud', our youngest kitty.  He's a spud all right.  Today he's been hanging out on my lap while I spend the day resting.  My asthma started up last night and would. not. stop.  At 3 am I found myself on that same recliner struggling to breathe while I coughed up a lung. So any effort to do something well, productive went out the window at 3 am. I've decided on a project diet when it comes to knitting: no more projects started until the ones I've got on the needles are finished.  Two out of 9 are finished but there are three sweaters in that queue. 

So Dave and I watched the third movie in the Transformers line last night. If I were to give it a star rating, it would be 2 stars out of 5.  Why? Well, let's go through those: Megan Fox IS the chick in the Transformers. This other lady? Well first of all, you look like you could break her in 1/2 with a strong wind. OK, so I didn't even know  who Megan Fox was until like last year, but she made the Transformers movie. And who runs through an entire battle scene in high heels? So lame The battle scene was like, 9 times longer than it really needed to be.  So much so that 1/2 an hour into it, I was like, "Are they going to be done now?" Having a good guy AND a bad guy (this time in 2 different machines: the Primes) with the same color scheme really confuses you when you're watching the battle scenes. Okay *** Spoiler ALERT ***  This pylon/column thing glowing red is the key to destroying the bad guys. So ah...why is every GOOD guy NOT EVEN SHOOTING AT IT?!?!...

My Friend, Vicki started this - made me aware of     nablopomo which is National Blog Posting Month. The challenge is to blog once a day.  Yeah, I am aware that I missed like....4 days.  Is my life that interesting to blog once a day? I'm pretty sure some of it might be, but mostly no.  Yesterday's work was done quickly, so I decided to clean up my spot in the living room.  The recliner won't retract and I am sure Dave will need to take a look at it.  I'm a nester. My end of the couch has everything needed for a decent 4 hours of life without having to get up.  So it needed cleaning.  What led to me organizing yarn, what led to me cleaning out the whole yarn stash. I found many skeins of yarn I did not know I had, including lots of bits for the hexipuffs.  I feel obligated to add pictures to my posts, you know.  This was a sunrise a few weeks ago taken from my front porch. 

Hexipuffs are the new thing going in the knitting world.  Why? Well everyone who has knitted a sock has bits of sock yarn left over from them.  What do you do with them?  My first effort to get rid of them is the sock yarn blankie  which I started on a very late night a few years ago.  I blame the late hour for the fact that I'm knitting it wrong: Instead of a garter stitch blanket, mine is stockinette. That makes it look like fish scales.  Well, take a look: It gets the job done at using up scraps too small in yardage for anything else. Right now it's big enough to use as a throw on the couch. But now we've got the bee keepers quilt:   This blanket is made from little separate puffs stuffed with stuffing.  I'm using wool to stuff mine, since I've got like..tons of it around (read the last post) My total puff count right now is about 45. The consensus is to make a throw is about 300 puffs, a queen sized blanket would be 900+.  T...